


Divide And —

by demisms



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Dragons, Knights - Freeform, Language, Multi, Murder, Regency, Royalty, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:02:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demisms/pseuds/demisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“What I’m asking, young man, is if either of you ever seen the inside of a castle?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>— </p><p>Orphaned Bellamy and Octavia Blake are taken in by the excessively wealthy, childless Lord Kane, and are raised to pursue greatness. And greatness comes with many opportunities, like traveling the world, training to fight in foreign kingdoms, fighting dragons, and rescuing princesses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divide And —

**Author's Note:**

> i got REALLY bored at work. completely unbeta'd, sorry.
> 
> this story was loosely based off a fantastic roleplay i did with my lovely friends marie and cella, so smooches there.
> 
> and this story will also span several years, and eventually include a great deal of octavia/all the ladies and bellamy/all the ladies. so yeah. look forward to that.

“Octavia?”

 

He’s tall for ten, already going lanky in the limbs and long in the face. His mother complains, often and good-naturedly, about how he grows out of pants faster than she can sew them, and that his sister rips holes in hers faster than she can mend them and, oh, what had she done to deserve two children so difficult to clothe. 

 

Not that they wore much in the high heat of summer anyway. Bellamy stood on hard packed earth with bare feet, the dirt stained soles of his feet long calloused and impervious to any offending rocks or twigs along the ground. The sun beat down on his bare shoulders, freckles erupting along his back, curling up his neck, and splattering his cheeks, as if to welcome the sunny reprieve from the wet spring; to herald in his favorite season.

 

Now that the back breaking, palm blistering work of the planting season was over, all that remained was the daily tending of their small crop field out in front of the ancient, two roomed hovel they’d called home for as long as he could remember. Compared to churning the soil with the rough made hoe, and digging up rocks by hand when the shovel broke, watering the assorted carrots, potatoes, and edible greens was easy. Especially when their sparse crops grew on a hill, and the water poured from the west would run in rivers down the patch to soak the plants in the east. The work was easy, and their mother only insisted they water in the early morning, and the evening, leaving the two of them with considerably more time to play outdoors. Which is what had led to the two of them bursting out the front door without shirts on, Octavia screaming delightedly while Bellamy chased her down the hill to the tall grass that grew at its base. 

 

And now there he stood, scouting the expansive pasture of soft rippling gold for any sign of dark hair bobbing about.

 

“Octavia!”

 

She’s short for four years old, and stealthy on top of it. It’s no real wonder he’s been looking for her for ten minutes without much luck. There’s a soft wind rolling down the hills around them, buffeting his hair and the grass around his waist, playing tricks on his ears. Turning this way and that, and just about to panic and call for her (for the umpteenth time) again, Bellamy feels something short, hard, and suspiciously sister shaped crash into his back. Thin arms snap around his hips, and delighted giggling fills the air as his sister goes limp, trying her hardest to drag him to the ground.

 

“ _Octavia_ —” He cries, but it’s more a bemused splutter this time around, Bellamy wobbling precariously and clutching the waist of his pants so she can’t pull them down with her. Octavia slides, giggling, down his thighs until her arms are wrapped tightly around his knees, and he can crane around to look at her face.

 

“I’ve got you! Conquered!” she sings, grinning that big, wide grin that shows off her missing teeth. “Conquered!”

 

“Do you even know what that means?” Bellamy teases, because he knows she doesn’t, and just insists on saying it because it comes up in all her favorite stories.

 

“No~” Octavia drawls in that way children do when they’re being teased, but aren’t really embarrassed, and Bellamy considers turning this into a teaching moment —

 

(He can read a little, unlike his sister and most every other child in the surrounding hills; none of them are very well off, and literacy is about as useful as dancing when you make a living off of tending crops and raising small animals. But Aurora Blake had loved stories, and treasured a book of ancient tales that she’d read out of to them on particularly cold, dark, and sleepless nights.

 

She’d taught her son a few words here and there; would likely teach Octavia too, once she settled down and actually cared to learn. Thus far the only word she’d cared to commit to memory was conquered, which she threw around so freely and often, that it’d begun to lose any real meaning. It was ridiculous, and endearing.)

 

— but before he can open his mouth, or even ruffle her hair, Octavia’s releasing his legs, disappearing back into the swaying grass with delightful shouts. She makes no attempt to conceal herself this time, and Bellamy can see her making a clear path to the small, rocky stream just south of the tall grass.

 

She’s little, and can’t even remember to wash behind her ears, let alone swim very well. And since he’s not about to let her go wading without holding onto his hand, Bellamy books after her.

 

“Octavia!” he laughs outright this time.

 

“Conquered!” the tall grass seems to shriek delightedly back at him.

 

* * *

 

He’d had arms full of grain and wool, but when Octavia had begun to fuss and whine about how tired she was, Bellamy’d still found room on his back and carried her the three miles home from the market in town. Her only task had been to carry the eggs, and he spends an hour and a half trying to hold a conversation with a sleepy, fussy four year old with a basket of eggs in his face, obscuring his view of the road. But they only break one by the time they return home. By then, he’s playing the majestic steed to her brave knight, and after carefully depositing their haul on the thick legged table in front of the fire, he indulges her for a few minutes longer, galloping around their kitchen with wildly obnoxious huffs to compliment her insane laughter.

 

Their mother catches them, of course.

 

“Put her down before you break something,” Aurora chastises sharply, bringing Bellamy to a screeching halt. He sheepishly lets go of Octavia’s legs and she slides down his back with a dejected whine. A firm look from their mother puts an end to the oncoming temper tantrum, however, and the little girl slumps away to play with the embers of the almost dead fire. 

 

Apron full of a few potatoes and a slab of dried meat from their last goat they’d slaughtered two months ago, Aurora moves to the table to begin fixing their dinner, Bellamy close behind her to help. Or at least offer his company, and intriguing conversational topics from what he’d overheard while in town.

 

“Mother, who is Diana?”

 

“There’s no one in this village named Diana,” she dismisses idly, taking a dull knife to the potato skins and quickly stripping it down to yellowed flesh. Bellamy fetches a bowl from the cupboard, but doesn’t drop the topic as quickly as his mothers tone suggests she would like. 

 

“Atom’s father was talking about a Diana,” he pushes, accepting the potato and using his own knife to cut it into smaller chunks for stew. Ever the perfectionist, Bellamy’s eyes hone in on his work, and he almost completely misses the grave look that flashes across his mothers face at his next words. “He said she was dead.”

 

Aurora’s hand slips. Ever so slightly, just so. She doesn’t cut herself, or drop her knife, but fumbles. Tenses up and stares at her sons bent head with wide, worried eyes. Then to her daughter, who’d given up on the fire and had dragged her dirty cloth doll from on top of the small chest of drawers they kept various kitchen and garden tools in. Heart in her throat, and fingers so tightly wrapped around the potato that her hand is practically white underneath all that dirt, she briefly wonders if they should run. But, where to? They’d no where _to_ run, no where to go; no real friends or family, and nothing to their names except the shanty hovel halfway up the hill. 

 

There’s a scratching at the door, and she jumps before realizing that it could only be their dog, whining to be let in and fed with the rest of them. Bellamy’s already halfway out of his chair to get their pet, and Octavia was talking to the doll about how they had to hide before Cerberus licked them; neither of them pay much attention to her stricken pallor, and Aurora takes those scant few seconds to compose herself as much as she can.

 

Sure enough, the dog makes a beeline for Octavia. 

 

“Bellamy? Lock the door.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Mother, what is it —”

 

“Just get under the table.”

 

“Who’s outside?”

 

“Now!”

 

“Mother —”

 

“Bellamy! _Now_!”

 

In his arms, Octavia began to cry that she _don’t want to go under no table, I want to go to bed, I want to go back to bed_.

 

* * *

 

The weak morning light sees two children standing in on a hillside, shellshocked, empty eyes gazing down across the valley on fire, and listening to the screams of those townsfolk that were still alive, and still battling the flames in vain attempts to save their homes, their livelihoods, their loved ones. 

 

It’s cold. Even in summer, the mornings are cold, and while both Bellamy and Octavia shiver something awful in their night clothes and bare feet, they don’t complain. Don’t move, don’t talk, don’t do much of anything. Just stand in the burnt ruin of their garden and stare at their charcoal plants, and the flames that consume the golden grass they’d played in just a few days before. 

 

By his side, holding his hand, Octavia weeps. Quietly, but obviously; running her hand over her face time and time again, and sniffling pathetically enough for the both of them. And while he’s practically grown, and shouldn’t be reduced to crying, tears run down Bellamy’s dirty, sooty face, leaving tracks of pale skin underneath the grime. There’s no shame in it, not with his back to his childhood home, full of holes and blood; not with his feet among the burnt ruins of food that had been supposed to feed them all of the next year; not with people he’d known his whole life frantic specks in the distance, who even knew how many were dead or dying. There’s no shame in it, but when he looks down at his little sister, he feels a deep pang of sadness — there was no way he could feed her — and then guilt — of _course_ he would feed her. 

 

“Octavia,” he begins. But when he tries to find something comforting to tell her, his voice dies in his throat. There’s nothing that can _be_ said, no soothing to be done. The most he can offer her is the knowledge that he feels the same raw, ragged hole in his soul that she must, but that solidarity is communicated perfectly in holding her hand while they cried. So he just squeezes his fingers and stays quiet. 

 

Looking at her, he almost misses the sound of approaching horses. The _huff_ of the beasts in the brisk air, the crunch of their hooves on dirt. He sees them, through the haze and smoke; sees them and is rooted to the spot for a long moment. But fear — it _is_ fear, the raw fear that comes with helplessness — cannot be allowed to govern him anymore. It’s Octavia’s renewed crying that spurs him to action, slapping his hand over her mouth and hauling her into his arms with little concern for her comfort just that she _moved_ , just that _they moved_. He thinks she might be saying his name between his fingers, but doesn’t pay her any mind, doesn’t even stop to hush her until they’re climbing back through the broken door and diving back under the table.

 

“Shhh,” he whispers to her then, palm still firmly clamped over her lips. Her snot and tears wet his knuckles, and he can feel a scared, nervous sweat accumulating under his arms and all across his face. But Bellamy remains still as can be, and waits. “ _Shhh._ ”

 

And sure enough, there’s the telltale crunch of boots on broken, splintered wood, and the quiet conversations of grave, put upon men.

 

“ _God_ , they even killed the dog.”

 

The inside of their ruined home is dark. The fire is dead, the windows broken, the sun had not yet fully risen and the table that served as their shelter had been pushed against the back wall, keeping the two of them well enough in the shadows that no one was likely to see them unless they were crawling on their hands and knees. Bellamy could count the men walking around the bloody ground, counted four pairs of boots. New boots, nice boots. And as nice of riding trousers as the seamstress’ son had ever seen. 

 

“Save your sentiments for the animal, and find me a blanket to cover the woman,” a different voice growled, pitched deep and angry. A third man dips into their bedrooms and returns with the blanket off his and Octavia’s bed to drape it over the twisted, cold corpse in the corner. 

 

The fourth pair of boots, the man that had no spoken yet, stood over a lump of discolored cloth, stained redder than usual with Cerberus’ blood. He nudged it, with the pristine toe of his shoe, tipping it over to find what Bellamy knew to be the rough embroidered eyes and mouth of his sisters’ doll. Inwardly he cursed, he should have grabbed the ugly thing and hidden it with them. But so long as they stayed hidden it wouldn’t matter if the new strangers knew of their general existence. 

 

Octavia’s distressed, stiff in his lap and breathing hard and fast against his hand. She’s scared, and he doubts she’d make any sound if he removed his fingers from her lips, but doesn’t want to chance it.

 

“I think she had a child,” the doll-kicker remarks lightly, sadly. He sighs. “Or two.”

 

“Monsters,” the first man curses, and comes to look down at the doll beside his companion. “My Lord.” Beside _his lord_. “You do not need to subject yourself to this. This is heartbreaking, yes, but would have moved you none the less if you’d allowed us to come and relay our findings back to you.”

 

“I needed to see it for myself.” The lords resolve sounds firm. He bends to pick up Octavia’s doll, and Bellamy tenses, squeezes his sister so hard he’s sure it hurts, but neither of them so much as breathe until he’s straightened up again, seemingly without noticing them. “My mother will weep regardless. But I… I needed to see it for myself.”

 

“They will keep raiding,” the blanket thief says, almost nonchalantly. “Queen Diana is dead. There will always be those who think the death of one monarch means they’ve not got another lined up to take their place. Or two!”

 

“The crown will pass to Lord Theolonious,” the growler reprimands, edging towards the door. “The Lady Griffin is too fresh in mourning to rule. My Lord, we should continue.”

 

“What do you think befell the children?”

 

“They’re probably dead. If they’re girls, they’re worse than dead. _Now_ , Lord Kane, please. If we’ve any chance of catching these —”

 

Bellamy cannot see what happens to cut off the growler, but silence falls sudden and unexpected. Hangs in draped in the air, like the blanket over their mother, for what feels like minutes. And then fine leather boots tap lightly across the rough wood floor, step carefully around every piece of fallen debris and speck of blood, approaching the table. And Bellamy panics, lets go of petrified Octavia’s mouth in frantic search of a weapon, any weapon. But the only thing within range is an upturned bowl of cold stew and a slim pewter spoon. 

 

It isn’t until the feet stop right in front of the table, not until the knees bend and he knows for _certain_ they’ve been found out, that he acts. 

 

Gracelessly shoves Octavia between him and the way and lunges for the spoon, holding it in front of him like (some desperate boy with a spoon) the mightiest of weapons as a strong jawed, clean shaven face came into view under the tabletop. Unsurprised, and unalarmed, the calm Lord Kane looked like a decent enough person. He looked nothing like the grizzled, yellow teethed and oiled faced men who’d broken their door off it’s hinges and set fire to their crops, but he still crouched before them the same way the other men had; the way the man with the pimples all over his face had while his friends had backhanded Aurora and wrestled her to the ground. Only where the first had smirked and told them to get a _good look at that, boy_ , this man just looked… sad.

 

Not that sad would have Bellamy lowering his spoon. He’d decided to go for the eyes if it came down to it, the eyes were vulnerable.

 

“What’s your name?” Lord Kane asks, not unkindly. Neither of them answer, and the man points to the faded brown blanket covering their Aurora. “Is that your mother?”

 

In response to which, Octavia sobs. She’d been hidden so completely behind Bellamy’s shoulders that her existence seems to surprise the lord for a split second, causes his eyebrows to arch up his face. But a quick look at the doll seems to clear up some of the confusion, and he gives an attempt at a smile.

 

“You haven’t got any need of that utensil, boy. I won’t hurt you.” And when Bellamy’s arm refuses to drop: “How old are you, child?”

 

“Thirteen,” he lied, as if adding a few years to his credit would scare the strangers off. “I’m not a child.”

 

“But your sister is,” Kane observes, which angers Bellamy to no end. He’d taken care of Octavia all his life; had fed her, bathed her, brushed her hair, played with her. He would _feed her_ , he would do anything for her, and he would protect her better than he had protected their mother. 

 

“I can take care of her,” he insists, huffing as he feels her press her face to his back.

 

“With a spoon, child?” The other men had crouched down, and spitter seems skeptical. The blanket thief laughs. “That isn’t going to do you much good.”

 

“I’m not a child!” Bellamy spits, angry and painfully aware of the tear tracks down his face from earlier. His nose is running too, but at least his hand is steady. 

 

“No,” the lord agrees, nodding solemnly. “Children don’t survive tragic events like this.” 

 

Bellamy’s heart catches in his throat, and he bites at his tongue. He’d not done anything grand to save them from the raiders. It had been those mens’ sadistic pleasure in making them watch while they’d murdered their mother that had kept them alive. His mother had raised him to be braver than cowering under a table, and he’d failed her there, but he wouldn’t fail Octavia ever again. Breathing heavy, and glancing from clean face to clean face, he feels trapped, and shifts back on his knees, pressing his sister even more securely against the wood of the wall in case these men were trying to lower his guard for some devious reason or another. The move fails to avoid Lord Kane’s notice.

 

“Very protective, I see,” he remarks, ignoring the groans of his impatient companions, men who’d much rather leave them there and go on to chase mongrels and murderers. Bellamy couldn’t fault them, he’d like them to leave the house too. But the lord seemed to love to hear himself _talk_. “That’s very noble of you.”

 

“My sister,” he grits out reluctantly, “my responsibility.”

 

“You’re right,” the man agrees, weighing Octavia’s doll between his hands thoughtfully, like he’s weighing ideas and outcomes. Maybe deciding if he should kill them, leave them, or maybe even — “But that is an awful lot of weight to put on one young _man_ ’s shoulders, don’t you think? Raising her is going to be a lot of work, and wouldn’t you like to share some of that burden with someone else?”

 

_Octavia isn’t a burden_ , he thinks mutinously, but is too caught up in the confusion of whatever the hell else Lord Kane was talking about to nitpick semantics. They didn’t have any living relatives — had never seen or heard from either of their fathers, were pretty sure they were both dead — and no one in town was going to be able to take on two more children after the fires and raids. So: 

 

“What are you asking?” 

 

He doesn’t mean to lower the spoon away from eye level, doesn’t mean to let his curiosity get the best of him. But Bellamy lets his guard a fraction of the way down and knits his brow. 

 

“What I’m asking, young man, is if either of you have ever seen the inside of a castle?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> don't forget to kudos & comment!


End file.
